


until death, it is all life

by ofscythia



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: American Civil War, Andy and Booker are angst buddies, Character Study, Gen, Pre-Canon, Pre-Movie: The Old Guard (2020), Temporary Character Death, but there is some background Nicky/Joe, mostly focused on Andy and Booker, their relationship is so complex and i love it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:15:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25511944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofscythia/pseuds/ofscythia
Summary: As he lies flat on his back, slowly bleeding to death in some field in Maryland, Booker finally admits to himself that he should have just listened to Andy.
Comments: 34
Kudos: 149





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> new to fic writing - comments much appreciated!

As he lies flat on his back, slowly bleeding to death in some field in Maryland, Booker finally admits to himself that he should have just listened to Andy.

The whole reason he’s even here, dressed in this thick wool coat and dying in a state that he wouldn’t be able to pinpoint on a map, was because Andy thought he needed a change of scenery; that a chance to fight for something noble might get him to stop drinking himself to death so often. 

He knows her plan never included the two of them separating - he’s to blame for that. Leave it to Booker to chase off the only person on this continent that understood what he was going through.

If he was with Andy, Booker doubts he’d be in this situation. Or, at the very least, she would have been kind enough to put him out of his misery by now. He gropes a hand across his stomach, wincing at the feel or blood and flesh rent open by shrapnel from an exploding shell. Of course Booker's not lucky enough to be actually killed by the endless artillery fire raining down on the field, instead he gets to lie in the grass and hope that some advancing soldier might do him the favor of slipping a bayonet into his chest and speeding the process along.

The pain is bad enough that he can't quite tell if his body is trying to heal him or if it's given up and will let him die for a bit before bringing him back again. Who knows; maybe this will be the final time he suffers through this and when his wounds finally overcome him, he'll stay dead.

Booker dismisses that thought almost as soon as it comes to him, closing his eyes against the chaos and heat of the battle with a groan.

He's never been that lucky; not in any life. 

* * *

A heavy kick to the ribs rouses Booker from his drunken stupor. He lets out a pained groan and curls in on himself, not yet willing to rise and acknowledge that he’s back in the land of the living. Despite his best efforts, he can't seem to leave it. The huff of exasperation that sounds above him is familiar - one of the first lessons he learned in his immortality was that not even a postmortem hangover could block out the scornful voice of Andromache the Scythian. While the tone is unmistakable, the pounding pain in his head is almost loud enough to drown out the actual words being spoken to him.

Almost.

“Do you ever get bored of choking to death on vomit?”

He rolls over onto his back, opening his eyes and then immediately shutting them against the onslaught of afternoon sun streaming in through the kitchen windows. Damn Italy and damn it's too-bright afternoon sunlight. Booker opens his mouth to plead for Andy to just leave him be and maybe pass him some wine while she's at it, but the taste of old bile in his mouth and the feel of it pooling tacky-warm around his head makes him retch instead.

“Come now, there can’t be anything left in your stomach after last night.”

Andy’s hand reaches down and grabs onto his collar, hauling him up so that he’s leaning back against the leg of the kitchen table. His head lolls on his neck and he blinks blearily up at her, wiping at his face with the tails of his shirt. Booker hunches in against her gaze, only straightening up when she leaves the room. He listens to her footsteps as she walks out of the kitchen, tracking them as they walk down the hallway and into her room. Andy comes back with a pitcher of water, setting it down at his side and stepping back from him.

He slurs a quick thanks to her and grabs the pitcher with both hands, gulping down the water greedily even as his stomach roils at the sudden influx of liquid. He drinks his fill quickly and sets the pitcher back down on the floor. Andy takes it from him, examines how much liquid is left inside, and then flings the rest of the water onto him.

Booker lets out a hoarse shout, sputtering with indignation as Andy stares down at him with an amused smile. “Good morning, _mon ami_.”

“Damn you to hell, Andromache.” He spits, swiping blindly at the water dripping down his face and into his eyes. “That’s no way to welcome a man back from the dead.”

She rolls her eyes at that, setting the pitcher down on the kitchen table. “When I keep finding the same man dead from drink on the floor, I have to throw in some variety. If you’d like some more ceremony, try not passing with as much frequency as you have been.”

It’s been like this since the three of them had found him; cycles of good cheer and training marred by longer stretches of time where Booker does his best to see how many times he can drink himself to death within a century. He knows that the three of them excused the first two wine-logged decades - the mix of sudden immortality and the death of your wife would drive any man to drink to excess. To a certain extent, that same grace could be applied to the third and fourth as well, given the loss of his sons.

But after nearly half a century Booker knows that he’s run out of reasonable excuses. The attempts to help him mend his ways started earlier this decade. Nicoló had appealed to their mutual faith, but Booker hates God almost as much as he hates himself and the conversation had only caused him to drink more heavily. Yusuf tried invoking the memory of his children and what their wishes for their father would be, but that emotional appeal was too close to some of his more tender emotional wounds to really be effective. After a few years of unsuccessful entreaties, both of them stopped trying. 

Andy hadn’t deigned to try and solve his problems for him yet. Booker can’t decide if he respects her for it or not.

“My deaths are my business.” He mutters, pushing himself to his feet and stalking over to shut the blinds. Andromache watches his fumbling with an unreadable expression, now perched against the edge of the table with her arms crossed. Not yet willing to be subjected to another lecture, Booker stays silent and keeps his gaze fixed resolutely on his shoes. He decides that he needs to polish them and focuses all of his attention on ignoring Andy and counting each scuff and scratch. It's an effective strategy, but the constant weight of her gaze makes him uneasy and he eventually gives in and meets her eye.

“What?”

“I’ve got news.” She says casually. “We’re leaving Livorno tonight.”

The abruptness of the statement shocks him almost as much as being doused in water had. As much as he’s complained about the lingering smell of fish or the damnable afternoon sun that always makes his headaches worse, Booker’s gotten attached to the villa the four of them have spent the last year in. It might be far from France, but it’s begun to feel almost like a home to him.

“I’ve gotten tired of watching you try to pickle yourself alive with wine. It’s time for a new start. I spoke to Nico and Yusuf last night - we would have asked your opinion but you were unconscious - we’ve decided to split up for a year. Maybe two. They want to stay and finish what they started here with the Italian revolutionaries and I think you should come away with me. It’s not uncommon for us to split up,” Andy explains, not unkindly. “We’ve only stayed together as long as this to help you get used to things. Some time apart will-”

“Where are we going?” Booker interrupts, brushing aside both the pointed comment on his drunkenness and his hurt that he wasn't able to wish the men farewell before they left.

“America.”

Booker blinks at her. “…America?”

“Yes. You’ve heard of it, haven’t you?” 

“Yes I’ve heard of it- “ He snaps, exasperated. “What business do we have there?”

“The abolition of slavery." She stands at that, a glint of righteous fury in her eyes. "There’s a war brewing and I believe our skills could be useful there.” With a pointed look at the small puddle of bile still on the floor, Andy adds. “And I figure if you’re so eager to die, you might as well do it for a noble cause, yes?”

She turns her gaze back on him expectantly, as if waiting for him to argue with what she’s said. Booker would like to, but he can think of nothing clever enough to respond with. Instead, he goes back to staring at his boots. He really ought to get a new pair.

Andy sighs again. “Get your things packed and scrub up that mess; our ship leaves for France in a few hours.” She moves closer to him and pats him on the shoulder. “Chin up, Book. This’ll be good for us, I promise.” Andy squeezes his forearm and walks back out towards her room.

Booker watches her go, hair still dripping water onto the floor. With a sigh that feels like he pulled it up from his shoes, Booker grabs a linen napkin from the table and bends down to clean up his mess. As he scrubs and contemplates the next few months he’ll be spending on the water, Booker thinks to himself that all his hangovers have perfectly prepared him for seasickness.

As it turns out, he was wrong.

He spends most of their trip to Cannes leaning over the railing of their ship while Andy pats his back and regals him with stories of the time she spent in the West Indies as a pirate. From the fragments he catches between heaving up his daily meals, it all sounds very thrilling. After almost a week of stormy seas, Booker nearly weeps with joy when they finally dock in France. They rent horses when they arrive and spend the next weeks riding across the countryside to meet the American-bound steamer waiting for them in Nantes. He hasn't been in France since his last son passed, but Booker keeps himself distracted by pestering Andy about her experiences during the siege of Troy.

Booker never knew there were so many inaccuracies in _The Iliad._

When they do finally arrive at the port in Nantes, a fleeting part of Booker wonders if he has the courage to get back on a ship again. One week of illness had been unpleasant enough but Booker would rather die of starvation again than face the next few months of it. He expects to be teased when he mentions this concern to Andy, fearsome former pirate that she is, but instead she passes him her luggage and tells him to wait for her on the dock before he boards. She disappears into the crowded market that lines the street and returns later with a bundle of herbs packed tightly in a sachet.

“Thyme, mint, and wormwood.” She explains, passing it over to him and starting up the gangplank with their bags. “An old remedy I learned from a Roman sailor. The scent should help your stomach.”

Of course, the ancient Roman trick to solve seasickness works like a charm and now that's he's finally able to spend his time on other pursuits besides nausea, Booker passes the journey swapping stories with the sailors and playing cards on deck with Andy. When the weather is especially fine he'll nestle himself into a secluded corner of the deck to read, hat pulled low over his eyes to shade them from the sun. When the weather is too rough or the deck too crowded to sit topside, the two of them will lie in their hammocks and talk as they rock along with the motions of the boat, Booker holding the packet of herbs tightly beneath his nose.

Andy asks Booker endless questions about what he learned while in Napoleon’s army. How troop movements were organized, how supply trains were defended and maintained, and how battles were fought and won. The art of war has changed; evolved by the sudden influx of technology that's come in the past few decades, and she wants to feel prepared for what they'll face when they arrive in America. Booker tells her everything he can remember from his enlistment, the course of his training and the battles he fought; as well as a few anecdotes that make Andy roar with laughter when she hears them. Liquor and wine are abundant onboard - there are a few nights were they join the sailers as they drink and dance under the stars, but Booker finds that most of the time he gets more enjoyment making Andy laugh than he does drinking himself into a stupor.

That doesn't mean there aren't nights where he ends up just as belligerent and incoherent as he would get in Livorno, spitting out curses in jumbled French and spilling wine across his shirt as he tries to climb into his bunk. Andy will give him a wide berth on nights like that, tossing a pack of hardtack onto his chest and then leaving him alone to spend the night out on deck. When the morning comes, she's gracious enough to spare him any judgement besides a knowing look when he slinks up to join her for their morning meal.

It takes Booker a while to figure out what's changed his mood, but he eventually realizes that he feels a certain kind of ease being alone with Andy. Nicoló and Yusuf have always been warm with him and the camaraderie he feels when the four of them are together is unparalleled, but Booker finds that he and this former Amazon have their own particular rhythm. They both are fond of telling stories and quick to laugh when the mood strikes them, but are just as comfortable sitting in silence with each other. They share the same gallows humor and the same strong penchant for literature. Most of their journey is spent debating the merits of different books and poems - when Booker tells her about how much he loves _Don Quixote_ he nearly chokes on his grog when Andy tells him that she once lost a bet to Miguel de Cervantes himself.

“Oh, you think that’s bad?” She laughs, taking a deep swig of her drink and passing the bottle over to him. “You should ask Yusuf about his run-ins with Christopher Marlowe sometime.” Booker take a sip and wonders if he'll ever get used to learning how much of history his new family has lived through.

Days and nights spent discussing books and war makes the journey pass faster; Booker is surprised when Andy rouses him early one morning to announce that they've almost arrived. He goes up with her to watch as the American shoreline comes into their view. They stand alone together on the deck, huddled against the early chill of the day and watching as the smudge of dark land begins to break up the endless expanse of gray-blue sea that stretches out in front of them. Booker watches the land grow before them with anticipation. Before his march through Russia, he had spent his whole life in France. He's never been so far away from what he knows; has no idea what to expect from this place when they finally dock.

“You’ve been to America before, yes?”

Andy nods. “About a century ago.” She's good at schooling her emotions, but Booker can see the sorrow that mists in her eyes as she speaks. “For a while, it was home. I'm sure that it has changed since then."

That sentence rings true in a deep part of Booker's soul; one that's ached ever since he woke and realized that death no longer had a hold on him. “Does that ever stop hurting?” He asks. “Wandering the Earth and seeing places you knew and loved change so completely? I don't know how you cope with that. I mean, I think back to my own town and I-“ Booker clears his throat, taken aback by the lump that’s formed there. “I…I don’t think I could find my way back to my home anymore. The place were I was married, where I raised my children, and that was only fifty years ago. What is it like after a hundred? After two?”

That particular truth has been weighing heavy on Booker this past decade and he heaves a quick sigh of relief to have finally given it voice. Silence falls between them, the only noise the slap of waves against the ship. Despite his admission, Booker can feel his ears burning with shame. It feels embarrassing to share his sorrows with a woman whose faced down millenniums, who had known more love and loss than he ever has. She must think him a child, to whine about the recent memory of a family when Andy’s seen whole civilizations rise and then fall and then rise again.

“No, it doesn’t.” She tells him flatly, her fingers tracing patterns along the railing of the ship. "It makes me feel like a ghost at times, haunting a home that’s always being rebuilt around me. But, that’s why I make my home now with people. With Nico and Yusuf and you.” She nudges his arm with her elbow, flashing him an easy grin.

“The only constant we have now is each other. I've lived long enough to know that our bond can get us through anything. I’ve got your back, Book, and I know you’ve got mine. The two of us together? We’ll have this war finished in a month.”

And when Andy talks like that, Booker always believes her.


	2. Chapter 2

It starts, as all things usually do with him, with a drink.

Booker had been sober ever since he and Andy had landed in Baltimore, figuring that keeping a sharp mind would be important while they hatched their plans and moved towards the fighting. He had expected spending a day, maybe two, in the city; with just enough time to rest their heads before riding hard and fast across the southern border and straight into the action.

Instead, Andy got them settled into a boardinghouse and announced that they’d be laying low in the city and making their plans there. Weeks had passed and they were still making those plans, Andy pouring over newspapers and muttering to herself about troop movement while Booker stared at a paper map of the United States and drew out what Andy narrated, stewing in quiet resentment over their mundane actions and daydreaming about the crack of musket fire and the throaty boom of cannons. While he had been reticent to follow Andy to America and jump into a war he had no stake in, the idea of fighting had grown on Booker. If he wasn’t allow to wallow in self-pity and wine in Italy, he’d wallow in the chaos of the American war instead. Booker was a remarkably disciplined man: once he devoted himself to a course of action he committed himself completely to that task.

Andy had sensed that restlessness in him and had done her best to keep him occupied, sending him out into the city to feed her endless hunger for war news and to the telegram office to update Nico and Yusuf on their plans. Exploring the city had proved to be a riveting short-term diversion; Baltimore was a sprawling and crowded, clogged with factory smoke and carriage traffic. The people were high-strung and tense; Booker hadn’t been surprised when he learned that just a year before riots had broken out between Unionists and pro-Confederate agitators. If the entire country was wound as tight as this city, it made sense that war had broken out.

The Federal army had a firm stronghold in the city now, made evident by the near-constant streams of blue-coated soldiers that marched through the streets and rail stations. Sent from Washington to guard the way to the Capitol, the soldiers spent their days playing cards and drinking in the streets. The city was always buzzing with news from the not-so-distant front; rumors about mass Confederate victories in the Shenandoah Valley, of Union generals facing down presidential ire, and of the constant looming threat that the rebel army would burst through their defenses and overwhelm the city.

All the talk of battles and invasions made Booker antsy to get a move on, an urgency that Andy didn’t share. She assured him that the war won’t end before they get a chance to get involved, that joining the fighting without a clear plan would be a waste of valuable time and energy. A part of Booker knew that he should probably defer to Andy’s stance; one that she had formed after several hundreds of years spent making war her profession, but instead he blusters and makes his displeasure clear as he sat and dictated Andy’s war reports.

Unfazed by his newly-found fervor for the Union cause, Andy seemed content to let Booker vent his displeasure and not let it sway her from her plan. She spent hours pouring over papers, brow furrowed in thought as she traced her finger over Booker’s map. He would sit on their shared bed and just watch her think, hoping that she’d break her silence and tell him when they’d be moving out. Instead, the silence had begun to grate on Booker’s nerve so much he’d resulted to loudly flipping the pages of his copy of _Great Expectations_ that Yusuf had bought for him when they had first arrived in Italy, hoping the noise would at least provoke her enough to tell him to be quiet. All that protest had got him was a mischievous twinkle in Andy’s eye and a saccharine-sweet question about how he was liking the book.

Finally, weeks after their arrival in the city, Andy had finally announced that they’d be leaving the next day and heading towards Kentucky. Once they arrived at the border state they’d link up with the first Union regiment they found and start work. She had gone out to purchase some last-minute supplies before they left and Booker had figured that he was entitled to a night of fun, which is how he ended up in a tavern across the street from their boardinghouse, deep into his cups and far from coherent.

Despite the war raging just a few states away, the patrons in the tavern are jolly. Songs are being sung, toasts and cheers to the war effort, and raucous laughter fill the dimly-lit room. Booker basks in the buoyant mood of the room, smiling and humming along as snippets of music float in and out of his awareness. Away from the judgmental eye of Andy and Nico and Yusuf he’s content, drinking deeply from his cup and flagging the bartender down for another round. As he takes a swig from his new drink, a figure standing in the crowd catches Booker’s eye.

The back graceful pale neck and a head of dark, luscious hair. Booker’s heart jumps in his chest; for one brief moment he thinks he might have died again.

“Julia?”

His pulse is racing as he stares at the back of his wife’s head. Booker’s up and moving before his thoughts can catch up with him. It’s ludicrous; a part of Booker knows that Julia’s been dead for years - he was at her side when she passed, holding on to her hand and whispering his final goodbyes - but that memory is easy to dismiss as he floats on a high of joy and intoxication. As he stumbles to his feet and moves towards her, all Booker can think is that something has finally gone right in his life.

“Julia! _Mon cher,_ I missed you.” He cries, grabbing onto her arm and pulling her towards him so he can look at her face. She turns to face him with a startled gasp and when Booker stares down at her, he freezes. “Julia?”

It’s not her.

While time and alcohol have dulled Booker’s memory on other matters, the face of his late wife is still one that still burns brightly behind his eyes. Julia’s eyes were a charming honey-brown, always sparking with wit and mirth, but the terrified woman staring up at him has green eyes. That realization has a physical ache to it; a sudden pain blooming in Booker’c chest and twisting sharply in his gut. It knocks the wind from him and the shock of the realization strikes him mute. Booker can’t loosen his grip on the woman’s arm or attempt to explain himself,too transfixed by the lovely wrongness of her gaze to even

“Let go of her!”

Two pairs of rough hands grab at him and pull him away from the woman, who retreats behind a man who pulls her to his chest protectively. The fear in her gaze shames him, but before he can try and stutter out an apology these two men have pulled him out of the room and thrown him into the alley next to the building. The impact with the cobblestones jars him, a sudden shock of sensation that prepares him for the blows that rain down on his head and body.

From what he can make out, the men above him are calling him a bastard for bothering the woman. Booker agrees with them, and after a few moments of trying to curl up against the feet and fists that assail him, he relaxes and lets the blows fall where they will. The pain bites through the haze that the drink had covered him in and is almost familiar to him after decades of watching his body fall apart and then knit itself together again.

A particularly well-aimed kick strikes him at the base of his neck and Booker relishes the sharp snap that lights up his sense and races through his nerves before the whole world goes dark and silent. 

When he comes back to life he’s back in the boardinghouse, lying flat on his back on the bed.

He sits up with a groan, hand rubbing the nape of his neck. The bones had set themselves back under his skin; only a headache is any evidence that his neck had snapped at all. Andy is seated at the table in front of him, her packed bag and newly-acquired supplies resting in a pile at her feet. Her expression is steely and entirely unreadable. Booker can do nothing but blink at her, unable to dredge up the words he’d need to try and explain himself.

“I was walking back to our room when I heard what sounded like a fight happening in an alley.” She says, voice nearly unnaturally calm. “Imagine my surprise when I go to intervene and see you, lying dead on the street with your neck snapped like a chicken.” She leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “Can you tell me what the point of that was?”

Almost dizzy with how quickly he’s sobered up, Booker gasps out an explanation. “I-I was…I just…I wanted a break.”

Andy blinks at that answer. “A break?

“Oh, what does it matter to you?” He cries out, resorting back to his usual defensiveness. They’ve done this dance before; in France and Italy and now here. Booker almost finds it charming, a familiar post-drink ritual that always starts the cycle anew. “Who are you to tell me what I can and cannot do?”

She rolls her eyes at him, throwing her hands up in frustration. “It matters because I care about you! I know the very thought of it revolts you but you’re a part of my family now and that makes you my responsibility.” Andy takes a deep breath, raking a hand through her dark hair. “I know that things have been hard on you but we’re here to get you out of these habits, to do some good.”

“So when will we?” Booker snaps. “We’ve sat here doing nothing for weeks! You said we came to America to fight and die in this war and that’s what I want to do! Not sit here and scribble on maps.”

“Have it ever occurred to you that I have reasons for what I plan for us?” Booker can hear the restraint in her voice, the measured tone smoothing out the emotion in her tone. “That I want to make sure we do good and and stay safe while we do it? Just because we can’t die doesn’t make the process enjoyable.”

Booker scowls, picking at the edge of the blanket covering the bed. He knows she’s right; that’s always been the problem with arguing with Andy.

“What have your plans done to help me? The three of you have dragged me back and forth across this world since you found me and nothing’s changed! I still feel as worthless as the day your found me at the gallows!”

Andy flinches to hear him say that and the reaction spurs Booker on, the sudden tumble of words flying from his mouth almost without his volition.

“Nothing in my life has improved since I died the first time! All this new life has brought me is pain and misery and when I do what I can to numb that pain, you shame me! I lost my entire family!” He yells. “My wife and my children! What else am I supposed to do? If you truly care for me you’d understand that!”

“Enough!”

Andy flies to her feet, knocking the chair back behind her. Booker is stunned into silence, numbly aware that this is the first time that Andy has ever truly yelled at him.

“I’m tired of this. You want space? That suits me fine, _Sebastian_.” Andy says, voice clipped and level. Suddenly viscerally aware that he’s pushed this situation past the point of repair, Booker flies to his feet and reaches out towards her.

“Andy.”

“Do you think you’re the first of us be angry about what we are?” She asks. “That you’re the only one who has lost people? Your grief doesn’t make you special, Booker.” Andy gathers the supplies at her feet, back turned to him as he starts to pack. “There’s a whole country for you to vent your angst to. Walk until your legs break. Drink until you drown. Take as much time as you need, but whether you like it or not, we’ll all be waiting for you when you’re done.”

“Andromache, please-“

She slings her back over her shoulder and looks at him. There’s frustration there, but more than anything he can see how much she pities him.

“Stay safe, Book.”

And without a backwards glance, Andromache the Scythian walks out the door of their room.

Booker listens as her footsteps fade, working on keeping his breathing regular. He feels like someone just struck him between the eyes, a stunning blow that he can’t rouse himself from. He can’t follow her; his legs feel like they’re rooted to the floor. Besides, Booker knows that she’ll be long gone if he tried.

Naturally, he drinks himself to death that night.

When the morning comes he washes the taste of old wine and bile from his mouth, taking a hesitant seat at the table. It feels strange to sit here in Andy’s absence; a part of him wants to prop his feet up against the window just to see how it would feel.

The silence of the room is eerie, makes it hard for Booker to focus. He absentmindedly flips through the old newspapers stacked on the table, thinking about what to do next. Trying to track Andy down would be impossible and he couldn’t bear the shame of sending off a telegram to Nico and Yusuf to tell them what happened. For the first time since 1812, Booker is well and truly alone.

Alone.

Alone in a country he’s never been to before, one that’s being ravaged by a vicious and bloody war. He’s got enough money to buy passage back to Europe, but the thought of more weeks at sea isn’t something Booker can stomach.

He stops rummaging through the stack when he comes across Andy’s map. For as much as he hated doing it in the moment, Booker admires his work. The cities are marked by stars, state border lines by dashes. Squares represent troops, with arrows tracing their movements as they clash and retreat with each other.

On paper, Kentucky seems close by. A few days of hard riding should get him there without too much trouble, so long as Booker manages to avoid any skirmishes. But what would he do once he arrived there? It would be just as easy to drink here as it would there, though Booker’s found that the taste of alcohol doesn’t hold the same appeal as it had just a few days ago.

If he can’t leave America then he must stay. If he stays, he can’t just drink himself into oblivion. This leaves him with only one other option. Booker runs a finger along the line of the map that divides the Union from the Confederate States of America, thinking back to the stories Andy had told him on their voyage about what good she hoped would come from their time here.

And while Booker might be an an ass, a drunk, and an utter fool at trying to express his feelings, he still wants to do some good.

He picks up the map and carefully folds it, tucking the paper into the inner pocket of his jacket. Booker rises and gathers his meager possession into his ruck-stack; a change of clothes, some food, and his copy of _Great Expectations_. Booker leaves their lodgings and starts walking towards the heart of Baltimore.

He had noticed the building when he and Andy had first arrived in town, notable for the long lines of men that usually snaked from the front door and down the sidewalk. He finds it again easily, looking at the sign hung in the window and ducking inside.

The business itself is short - an exchange of a name, a few questions about his health and where he hails from, and then a signature. The man seated behind the desk rises and then shakes his hand.

“Sebastian Livingston, welcome to the Union Army.”


	3. Chapter 3

After signing his papers, Booker is shipped off from Baltimore to Tennessee, herded with hundreds of other men in blue into train cars that send them racing into the heart of a war that the Union seems to be losing. On the ride south, he gets a firsthand take on what the war has brought to this country. Some of the men have seen action before; moving with new recruits from the western theatre of the war to the east. They tell tales of Confederate forces able to appear miles away from where they were last reported, of brutal battles lost to forces more familiar with the geography, of brutal retreats that ask weary and wounded soldiers to travel over 20 miles in a day. The freshly-drafted men gawk in shock at these stories, but Booker merely smiles.

In many ways, it sounds like war has changed little since his time with the Grande Armée.

After arriving south and starting army life in earnest, Booker is surprised at how easily he falls back into camp life. The men in his regiment take a quick liking to him because he forges leave documents and can cook well over a campfire. Sebastian likes them because all of their problems seem trivial compared to his; unhappy marriages or quarrels with their officers, concerns about missing the harvest season and complaints about their draft orders being extended.

All men in the army share the same problems that Booker knew in Russia - disease and lice that lay men low, rapidly-dwindling food rations that force soldiers to forage for food in the woods and from nearby farms, and a medical tent that is almost more horrific than the battlefields themselves.

Booker finds comfort in knowing the cause now is much more noble than what he fought for before, but the staggering lines of men shot to pieces or blown apart by cannons still feel like shadows of what he’s know before. Even in the oppressive heat and humidity of an American spring, almost a half-century removed, Booker can feel the creeping chill of Russia when he sleeps.

But, with the war still in its early stages and now hundreds of miles away from anyone who knows what he truly is, Booker concerns himself mainly with drinking freely, shirking his camp duties, and telling bawdy stories to the other men in his regiment. It’s easy to invent a past for himself when the men in his unit ask: Sebastian Livingston was a widower shopkeeper from a small town in Ohio, the father of a son who was working somewhere in the West. Sebastian Livingston had watched the mounting war effort with concern and had enlisted when he left that he could do more good with a musket in his hand.

He finds that his fictional story is quite similar to those of the other men in his regiment. These American men have left behind families and farms to join the Union Army, called to fight for justice, for the repair of their country, or just to get a taste of the glory and chaos that can only be found on a battlefield. Almost against his will, Booker grows attached to these young boys and famers. They’re simple people, easy-going and willing to share their food and drink with any man they fight alongside.

Not long after their arrival in Tennessee, his unit finds themselves in is an ambush; a line of gray-coated soldiers firing down at their camp just before the morning drill call. Jolted out of his sleep by the sharp crack of gunfire, Booker quickly loads his musket and joins the fight. To his surprise and relief, the curdling unease that Booker’s felt since Andy had left is settled by the fighting. All his angst and worry fade into the background as he charges into the treeline, his bayonet flashing an evil sliver in the sun. For a moment, Booker’s entire world boils down to what he sees at the end of his musket.

The feeling vanishes as soon as the fighting ends, he discovers.

Their camp escapes this fight with relatively few casualties - the group of men Booker takes his meals with all gather alive and whole at their usual time to eat and laugh and swap stories of the fighting, but he cannot bring himself to join in the conversation. His silence is noticed by the men and they tease him for his womanish reaction to bloodshed.

He smiles good-naturedly at the ribbing, but Booker is struck with the painful realization that no man he’ll meet in this war will ever fully understand him. He’s intimately familiar with this pain, having lived through it when his wife and children had died. A reminder of just how ‘other’ he is now and that he’s actively rejected the company of the only three people in the world that could possibly understand what that feels like.

“Ignore them, Sebastian.” One of the younger men of Booker’s unit says, his face unmarked by a beard but hardened by his previous battles. “The first taste of fighting is always hard. A toast would serve you better than a teasing.” The men seated around the campfire cheer at that and a canteen of whiskey is pressed into his hands.

The younger man stands, hushing the rest of the men with a wave of his hand. “Gentlemen, we toast tonight to the health and success of Mr. Livingston - now a blood-tried soldier of this noble cause. We fought well today - and may we all live to see the next one. To the Union!”

“To the Union!”

The men throw their heads back and take a heavy swig of their drinks. Booker smiles and laughs and keeps the mood of the evening light, taking special care to devote each of their faces to memory. He’s not sure if he believes in God anymore, but he sends up a quick prayer that each of them will live to see the end of this war.

Booker leaves his regiment the next morning, making a vow to himself to never get too close to any other soldiers again. Striking up camaraderie with mortal men during a war is a poor idea waiting to happen and getting attached to strangers who can die so easily is only a recipe for pain. Booker tells himself that the best way to make it though this war is to stay anonymous and unassuming.

Fighting makes this easy, but the nights do nothing to help his sense of isolation. He dreams of all three of them, as he always does when they are parted from each other. Yusuf and Nicoló appear in sun-soaked splashes of the Italian countryside, leading bands of revolutionaries in guerrilla battles. Andy is in a city somewhere in the company of a man, her hair cropped and voice dripping in an affected southern accent.

The inherent disorganization of armies makes it easy for Booker to simply melt into regiment after regiment, an unknown soldier in blue that no one misses when he vanishes. He spends the next months following armies as they march through the South and flinging himself headlong into every fight he can find. Battle keeps his mind busy and distracted from Andy’s absence and Booker relearns what it feels like to die from musket fire.

After waking up in a burial trench outside of Shiloh Church, Booker paws his way out of the mass grave and staggers onto the road, squinting around at the darkness. A few hours ago this field was alive with death, the lines of troops nearly impossible to see through the thick white plumes of musket smoke, deafened by the deep-chested boom of artillery fire and the screams of the wounded. He feels like a ghost, cursed to haunt the edges of battlefields and bear silent witness to the carnage that this war leaves on the bodies of men and on the land. He feels nearly crushed by both the weight of death that surrounds him and an overwhelming sense of loneliness.

Despite his transient soldiering, Andy had somehow still managed to keep tabs on him - the gifts start arriving after his death at Shiloh.

When a brutal march to Virginia leaves his boots nothing more than scraps of leather wrapped around his feet, he wakes one morning to a fresh pair resting beside his head. When he forages for firewood, he’ll return to find small packets of food waiting for him. After his smoothbore musket is picked off his corpse after a battle, Booker finds a new Springfield rifle wrapped neatly in his bunkroll.

The gifts always come with notes. In them, he learns that Andy’s been working with the Pinkerton Detective Agency since they parted ways in the spring, gathering intelligence throughout the South and freeing slaves as she goes. She keeps him updated on troop movements and gossip she hears from the officers she meets, always ending her notes with a wish for his safety. Booker can never catch her in the act, though he can’t deny that even hints at her presence alleviates some of the ache in his chest.

Booker keeps her notes pressed into the pages of his copy of Great Expectations, accepting the gifts and thankful that she hasn’t tried to speak to him directly yet. It’s been months since their fight, but Booker still doesn’t trust himself to not make a complete ass of himself when they see each other again. So he takes what is offered to him and continues his fighting as the summer fades into the fall.

The course of the war has taken a drastic shift since the spring; both sides realizing that this conflict would extend far longer than a year. The South has taken an aggressive stance, fighting west to east with the aim of shifting the war into Union territory. Booker had taken up with the Army of the Potomac, who had been chasing the Army of Northern Virginia for weeks. The two armies had met outside the town of Sharpsburg, Maryland and the resulting battle had been fiercer than anything Booker had fought in before.

Which is how he ends up flat on his back, innards spattered on the ground. The sounds of fighting have ceased; replaced by the groans of the dying. Eyes still closed, Booker sighs. Alive again, but body still struggling to knit itself back together. He hates gut wounds, they always take longer to heal.

Footsteps sound around him - soldiers picking through the remnants of the battle to help survivors or pick supplies off of the dead. The last thing Booker wants is to be carried to some medical tent and be gawked at while his organs repair themselves so he keeps his eyes shut and his breathing shallow. Thankfully, his wounds must look bad enough to dissuade anyone from checking to see if he’s alive.

It won’t be the first time that he’s had to play dead; he’d swung on the gallows for three days before the Imperial army had evacuated the camp to head deeper into Russia. That had been hellish - choking to death over and over while he tried to not draw any attention to himself. Comparatively, lying in the grass is much easier.

Someone walks by him and the footsteps stop. Booker braces himself to be relieved of his money and rifle, but instead two gentle hands reach down and cup his face.

“Book, are you with me?”

Booker’s eyes fly open when he hears her, sitting up with a gasp and then crying out in pain at the movement. “Easy, don’t get up yet.” Andy says, kneeling by his side and pressing him down so he’s lying flat. “I can still see your spine.”

Booker groans, breathless with pain and the shock of seeing her again. “Artillery…shell.”

“Looks like it.” She agrees, smiling wryly. “I think I tripped on a part of you walking over here.” He huffs a weak laugh at that, staring up at Andy’s face. Booker’s happy to see her, happier still that she looks well. Months of loneliness well up in his throat and it suddenly becomes vitally important that he express that to her.

“Andy…”

She cuts him off with a glare, hands now pressing down against the wound in his stomach. “Don’t start any of that with me. We’ll have plenty of time for that later. Focus on growing your small intestine back, _s’il vous plaît_.”

He reaches down, pressing one of his hands down over Andy's.

"Sure thing, boss."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *quick side note* the history of coffee and the civil war is SO FASCINATING and i had to include it

Andy’s bivouacked on the border of Maryland and Virginia, about an hour’s ride from the battlefield. The campsite is snug and far from the road, just the two of them alone as night begins to settle around them. Booker has his well-loved coffee mucket reaching a boil over the fire, hanging on a wooden pole next to an open pot of stew. Andy sits beside him, slicing up a potato with a knife and tossing the pieces into the cooking pot. It’s been so long since Booker’s had a potato, or any kind of fresh vegetable, that he’s almost tempted to ask if he can gnaw on a raw slice while they wait for the meal to finish cooking.

The life of a soldier necessitates certain hardships, but the lack of sufficient rations was a difficulty that had lingered on from his time in Napoleon’s service. When a marching army stretched for miles over rough terrain, supply lines often failed. After long months spent eating mostly rotten hardtack and whatever semi-edible items he managed to find, the thought of eating what Andy’s cooking makes Booker nearly dizzy with hunger. It brings back memories of other meals, of Nicoló chopping herbs with a careless finesse while he bickered with Andy over their recollections of the Hundred Years War, of Yusuf field-dressing a deer when the four of them were camped out in England for a mission.

The first time they had all eaten together was after they had cut him down from the gallows; six months of starvation roaring back into Booker’s body once he took his first full breath. Still early into his immortality and therefore slow to heal, his throat had been too ruined from the hanging to let him swallow food. Andy, apparently able to understand the meaning behind his desperate croaking, had broken pieces of bread and mixed them into water, spooning the mush into his mouth until he had healed enough to be able to chew. Booker had eaten every bit of food the three had with them that day, all of it passed over happily and without complaint as they started to explain the new realties of Booker’s life.

Even before they knew his name, they had been willing to give him all they had.

“Eyes on your pot, Book.”

Andy’s voice brings him back into the moment, where his mucket is nearly bubbling over with fresh coffee. He eases it off the pole and grabs two tin cups. He pours them each a generous cup, adding a splash of cold weather from his canteen as a final touch, a way of settling the unfiltered grounds to the bottom of the cup before drinking. Booker had quickly developed an appreciation for the drink during his time bouncing between army camps, learning tips and tricks from other soldiers on ways to improve their daily cups.

While he works, Andy rises and starts spooning the stew into their plates. Booker passes her the first cup, accepting his portion of the stew in exchange. The two of them sit back down beside each other and dig in. Booker eats in silence, momentarily overcome by the rapture of eating a real meal after months of stale rations and dandelion coffee. Andy indulges him, eating her own portion in amused silence by his side. For a while the only sound is the scrape of their spoons against their dishes and Andy’s appreciative groan when she takes her first sip of coffee. It’s comfortable; much like the silent ease the two of them had shared on the ship that had brought them here - Booker had missed this kind of camaraderie.

“I don’t think I’ve had fresh vegetables since we were in Baltimore.” Booker admits, reaching out to spoon another helping of stew into his plate. It’s a delicate way of trying to broach what he knows they’ll have to eventually discuss. Baltimore. There’s an apology stuck somewhere in his throat, but Booker isn’t sure he’ll be able to give it voice. Shame has been a specter that has haunted him across all his years, another ghost to add to Booker’s ever-growing collection.

Thankfully, Andy seems to be in a light mood, flashing him a mischievous smile over her coffee cup. “You should have stuck with me.” She says. “I’ve been eating my way through the South with the Pinkerton Agency. Even with a war going on, the belles and beaus of Kentucky have been keeping their social calendars full.”

Booker snorts, taking a drink of his coffee. “Is that how you’ve spent all this time? Dancing and feasting while I’ve been spitting out minié balls and marching through the rain?”

“If I had known you were so inclined I would have laced you into my crinolines and corset myself.” Andy says lightly. “At the very least, you would have been a better dance partner; Allan’s a fine detective but a shoddy waltzer.”

“Having Nicoló as a partner has spoiled you.” Booker teases. “Not everyone has had centuries of practice.” They both smile at that, but the mention of the other man makes Booker frown. While he's sure that they've been keeping in touch with Andy, he hasn't heard from either of them since he was in Baltimore. Booker clears his throat. “Have they, have you heard from-“

“They’re both fine.” She interrupts. “Still in the thick of the fighting in Italy, but they’re ok. They've asked after you." 

Of course they have, the considerate bastards. Booker is sure several telegrams have been sent by Andy explaining his sudden absence, with Nicoló and Yusuf both taking the time to send back concerned, sympathetic replies while in the middle of a war. 

"Oh?"

"I just said that you were taking some time." Andy says gently, though the tone doesn't rake Booker's nerves like it usually does. "We've all done this, Book. There's nothing wrong with it." 

Booker frowns into his coffee grounds. "I still feel like a fool." He mutters.

"Oh, don't pout." Andy says, reaching into the bag resting at her side and pulling out an orange. "For you.” She explains, tossing the fruit into his lap and jolting Booker from his mood. “One of the last things I grabbed out of Kentucky before I rode up here to find you. A fitting dessert, I think.”

Booker holds the fruit reverently in his hands, pressing it against his noise and inhaling. Sweet and ripe, the smell reminds him of their villa in Livorno. He halves the fruit with delicate hands, passing one part back over to Andy. She regards the fruit for a moment before taking it with a nod.

“All those gifts, I, ah, never thanked you for them.”

Andy shrugs at that, neatly peeling the skin from one slice before popping it into her mouth. “I just wanted to make sure you were well.” She taps her boot again his leg, looking over at him when he meets her gaze. “Have you? Been well?”

Booker chews on an orange slice to avoid answering right away, shutting his eyes to savor the flavor. “I don’t know.” He says, opening his eyes again. “Things have been…strange.” Not a new state of mind for Booker, who even decades into his immortality still feels unsteady. “You were right, though. Fighting has helped keep things in perspective.”

Andy nods. "I spent centuries fighting, at the start. It was all I knew how to do." Booker can't help but listen as she speaks; Andy almost never talks about her own life. He's learned bits and pieces; conflict she's lived through, people she's met, odd anecdotes she'll weave when she drinks. "There's a simplistic existence in war, almost calming. Hard to worry about anything else when you're dodging bullets."

She's right, of course. That been the whole reason the two of them had left Italy for America, to provide Booker with some of that simplicity.

"It feels nice to be doing good." He tells her. "To be useful. I didn't have that in the Grand Armée, but I feel like I do here." He eats another orange slice and sighs. "Will it always be like this? So...confusing? You bear all your years so well, how long did it take you to come to peace with this? With what we are?"

"Centuries." She says plainly. "Not until I met Quynh." A shiver runs down Booker's spine to hear Andy say her name. While Andy might be demure when it comes to her past, this topic is one that is never broached. In all the decades he's known her, Andy has only said Quynh's name once; after his first dream about her. "The one thing, the only thing that makes our lives bearable are the others. This all this gets more manageable with time. You have to remember, you're still young, Book."

"Young?" His mouth twists in an involuntary grimace. “I’m at the age now where my children should be gathered around my deathbed." Booker tosses his grounds into the fire and shakes his head. "And yet compared to you I'm a child."

Emotion stirs heavy in his gut, decades of confusion and questions that have sat bottled up or dampened with alcohol come rushing out of his mouth, voice breaking with the weight of them.

"What am I to do, Andromache?"

There's a long moment of silence, Andy staring intently at Booker while he looks intently into the fire. He's laid all his cards out on the table now and Booker nearly trembles with the weight of that vulnerability. He doesn't even realize that he's been holding his breath until Andy finally answers him.

“I can't tell you that, Booker. But I can make you a promise."

Andy puts her coffee aside and stands, reaching down to pull him up onto his feet. Booker takes her hands and rises, shocked into stillness when Andy pulls him into a hug. Arms wound over his shoulders, Andy holds him tight. Booker returns the embrace, face resting against her neck and arms wrapped around her waist. 

It nearly steals his breath away, the sincerity and love that he feels from her. Booker is suddenly struck with the incredible realization that there is nothing that he could do that would ever separate him from his new family, the three semi-strangers that the world had thrown into his path. What a strange and terrible blessing it was all turning out to be.

Andy holds the embrace and lifts her head to look him in the face, blue eyes wide and earnest. "No matter what happens, it’s you and me, Book. Now and always.”

And what can he say, he always believes her when she talks like that.


End file.
